Anna's Favorite Grimm
by DarkDamson
Summary: Lilliana can see anything she wants. Since her first encounter with him, she has become a bit obsessed with watching the life of her favorite Grimm. Until she sees bloody death. She watches Nick, Renard, Hank, Wu and Monroe all die. Now, she can't just watch. She has to do something. (Starts a few weeks before Last Grimm Standing.) Sequel to Anna Sees All. Sequel: Anna & the Prince
1. Nosy Beaver

Anna's Favorite Grimm

Liliana sat in her shop in the little wooden chair in front of the round table covered in bright silk scarves, staring into the crystal ball. This would be a fairly normal thing for her to do, if there were a customer on the other side of the table. But she was alone. One of her regulars, Phoebe Wurstner, a very nice eisbiber soccer mom, was coming by at 11:00, but it was only 9:43. The steady tick, tick, ticking of her clocks filled her work space with grounding peace. Liliana loved clocks.

Phoebe was the one who first told Liliana about the newly awakened Grimm in Portland. Phoebe's husband, Bud, had spotted the Grimm, and warned the local wesen community.

At first, Liliana had been terrified. Her old childhood nightmares of Grimms coming to get her returned with a vengeance. Then, her worst fear had come true. The Grimm had come for her.

But that hadn't turned out at all how she expected it to.

Now, the Grimm had become her new hobby, she supposed. Possibly even a bit of an obsession. Liliana stared into the crystal ball to watch him every spare moment that she could. The ball was simply there for show, but it had become habit for her to look into it when she used her fourth eyes. Liliana was comfortable with habit.

She watched him. With her fourth eyes, she looked back in time, to see who this Grimm was, how he had become such an odd sort of Grimm. She witnessed the moment when Nick Burkhardt saw his first wesen. He killed a reaper before he even knew what one was. He was fierce and deadly, this Grimm, certainly no one to be crossed. But he was like no Grimm she had ever heard of.

She watched him befriend a blutbad that Nick first thought was a killer of children, the gentle wolf who had given her the sweater off his back because she was cold. The wolf trained with him, honed Nick's Grimm instincts and gave him knowledge he needed.

She watched the Grimm protect a hexenbiest from murder, even though he despised her. He rescued a lost and wounded blutbad child and returned her to her second mother. He befriended a reinigen boy, and asked the gentle wolf, Monroe, to mentor the boy since they shared a love of classical music.

She watched the Grimm's life, how he balanced his sense of justice as a police officer with the darker reality of a Grimm's duties. She watched him buy food for a young human girl and her brother, because he knew they were hungry. She watched as Nick tried to save a geier from a fiery death, even though she had tortured and killed young humans like the one he cared for. His compassion for human and wesen alike was boundless. This was not the sort of Grimm she had seen in other visions of the past. He judged all that he met, human or wesen, by the same fair measure. Mercy was his first instinct, not murder.

This was not the sort of Grimm the wesen world had known. This was the sort of Grimm the wesen world genuinely needed. With more Grimms like that, Liliana's customers, the wesen who trusted her to guide them away from danger, wouldn't have to live in constant fear.

Liliana saw something else, something Nick didn't know. She saw another reaper come, hunting her favorite Grimm while he was still raw and new to the life he inherited, still vulnerable. She saw the reaper kneel to the police captain who assigned Nick to all the wesen related cases. The reaper called him "your highness." The captain, who must also be a prince, sent the reaper away, missing an ear, and warned all other reapers not to come back to his city. The implication was clear. No reaper was to harm HIS Grimm.

Nick seemed completely unaware of the prince that watched over him, just as, Liliana realized, he was completely unaware that Liliana watched over him. Liliana decided that was okay. Nick needed protectors.

The wesen community needed Nick alive.

He fulfilled a vital function. He gave justice to the ones who had never known justice, save that which they could rip from their enemies for themselves with tooth and claw. Peaceful people like Phoebe and her husband kept their heads low and tried hard not to attract unwanted attention from the more vicious wesen. In Nick Burkhardt, Liliana saw what the Grimms were truly meant to be, a civilizing influence, a chance for wesen to live as people, not as beasts.

That was why she watched over him so carefully.

Of course, it didn't hurt that he had such pretty eyes. She stopped for a moment, freezing an image in her mind of Nick smiling, and felt herself smiling with him. Nick's eyes weren't the only thing about him that was appealing. Nick was …

The knock on the door startled her.

She looked at her clocks. 11:04. That would be Phoebe. Liliana had sunk into the past and completely lost track of current time. It happened to her sometimes. That was one reason why Liliana liked to be surrounded by clocks. They helped her to orient in the here and now.

Liliana invited her customer in with the usual graceful dramatic gesture.

"Oh, Madame Anna, I'm so glad you could see me."

Lilliana cocked her head to one side in confusion. Phoebe was a fairly ordinary eisbiber with blonde hair and a pleasant face. "I can always see you if I wish."

Phoebe waved her hands and chuckled, "Yes, yes, of course. I just meant I was glad you could meet with me so soon. I'm worried sick. You'll never believe what happened. You know that Grimm I told you about? He came to my house yesterday! A Grimm! In my house!"

Liliana nodded understanding, looking down at the scarves that made up her skirt. "Yes, I know."

"You know! Why didn't you warn me? He threatened my husband!"

Liliana sat at her usual place at the table. Without the usual preamble, Phoebe sat on the opposite side in one of the two customer chairs.

Liliana had never had more than two people come to her at once.

"The Grimm asked only that he and his beloved be left in peace, and that your husband and his friends stop telling everyone where they lived." Liliana had not remembered to use the singsong seer's voice, so her own flat intonation made it sound like a rebuke.

Phoebe drew back from Liliana a little. "He said he would come back if we didn't do what he said. He'll come back and kill us all! I know he will. That's what Grimms do!"

Liliana stopped herself from reprimanding Phoebe again. Instead, she did what she was paid to do, she opened her fourth eyes and looked into Phoebe's future. She also remembered to switch to the customer voice with the soothing intonation that made customers more comfortable with her. The images she saw with her fourth eyes were flickery and uncertain. Nick might or might not return to the Wurstner's home. "The Grimm may return to your home one day, but if he comes, he will come as a friend, and an honored guest." In all possible futures where Nick might enter their home, she saw him only smiling or sad, and always welcomed, never in his role as the swift and brutal dispenser of the justice of a Grimm. "You have nothing to fear from this Grimm."

"What about Bud? He's been so excited about knowing a Grimm. I'm afraid of what will happen with him hanging around such a dangerous person."

Liliana looked into Bud's future, seeking any danger to him. An image practically leapt out at her. Bud screamed and screamed in horrible agony. He was tied and helpless as a masked figure burned him with a searing iron. Bud's screams died in an agonized gurgle. Liliana gasped and closed her fourth eyes to shut out the awful sight.

"Oh!" Phoebe covered her mouth with fear at Liliana's reaction. "What was it! What did you see?"

Liliana breathed deeply, fighting for calm, but she knew her hands were trembling. She had to be calm or Phoebe would panic. "Your husband is in great danger, but the danger is not soon. There is time to avoid it."

"I knew it!" Phoebe said almost triumphantly. "It's that Grimm! I told Bud to stay away from him."

Liliana very carefully opened her fourth eyes again, ready to slam them shut if she was assaulted by more visions of torture. She thought about Bud and Nick together, to see if that intersection was what caused Bud's danger.

An image made her smile and calmed her nerves. Bud hugged first Detective Hank, Nick's partner, then Nick himself, and thanked them for saving his life. "The Grimm is not the danger. He is the savior. Bud will die unless the Grimm saves him." She saw more bits of the future involving Bud and Nick. "Bud will present the Grimm to all the beavers. He will name the Grimm his friend, and the Grimm will smile and nod." Liliana sought specifically for any other danger related to Nick and Bud.

Three men ran in fear, with Nick on their heels. One man was Bud. Liliana recognized the eisbiber's sanctuary, their "lodge" inside the old dam. Nick wasn't chasing them, he was guarding their retreat.

Two reapers chased them. Nick sent the beavers to safety, and stayed to fight. "This Grimm is like no other. Nick will fight to defend your husband and your people from any danger."

Two reapers at once. Nick had so little training. Liliana was afraid to look, but she couldn't help it. She looked.

Nick fought valiantly. The two reapers fought as a team, overwhelming Nick's defenses. Liliana recognized one of the reapers, the one with only one ear. The prince's order to stay away had not been enough.

As Liliana watched, her favorite Grimm died. The reaper with one ear took his head. His blood spilled in a ghastly surge and his beautiful eyes stared at nothing, mouth open in a silent scream.

Liliana stood up from the table so quickly, she knocked over her chair. Turning her back on her customer, she fiddled with the scarves of her skirt. The silken feel of the fabric between her fingers normally calmed her, but nothing could calm her after what she had just seen. She twisted the soft fabric until it threatened to tear. "Nick will fight for Bud," she whispered. "He may die fighting to keep your husband and his friends safe." Liliana had seen Nick die, clear and close and very certain, but she would not say aloud that it would happen. The future wasn't set. Not yet.

"Oh my." Phoebe sounded stunned. "I had no idea. I thought …"

"That is all I can see today. I am tired." It was what Liliana said when she needed to end a session with a client who stayed too long. Phoebe had only been there a few minutes, but Liliana desperately wanted her to leave.

"Oh. Sure. Okay." She pulled money out of her purse and put it in the elaborate jar Liliana kept on the shelf beside the round table. "Can you see me again next week?"

The image of Nick's gruesome death consumed Lilliana's mind. Her hands shook as she ran the scarves through her fingers again and again. She barely even heard the question Phoebe asked. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that Nick would die.

She crouched in the corner in a little ball and rocked.

Phoebe left quietly.

Liliana had only just begun to know the compassionate Grimm. And already she had seen him die. She felt a surge of unreasoning anger toward Phoebe. Why had the stupid beaver woman made her look?

She opened her fourth eyes a tiny slit to look at Phoebe, half hoping she would see something awful happen to her. Instead, she saw the eisbiber sewing a beautiful quilt to give to the Grimm and his red-haired lady. And baking a pie as well.

It made the edges of Liliana's mouth twitch in something that was almost a smile. Phoebe's attitude toward the Grimm had radically changed. That future had not existed until Liliana spoke to her. Phoebe's future path had altered, as had Bud's by extension, and Liliana knew now that the fate of the beavers was intertwined with the fate of the Grimm. Liliana had changed the Grimm's future in a small way for the better.

She risked a quick glance into the future, but saw the same ugly death still waiting to claim her favorite Grimm.

Nick was still going to die.

Liliana stopped rocking and stood up.

Not if she had anything to say about it.


	2. Wolf's Bane

If Liliana's goal was to keep Nick alive, she had to find a path through the future that led to him surviving his encounter with two reapers, or better yet, never encountering them in the first place. He clearly needed more training, but he also needed allies. The only reason reapers hadn't already hunted him down was the prince who watched over the Grimm, and the only reason Nick hadn't been killed half a dozen other ways was the wolf who helped the Grimm navigate the wesen world.

The trouble was, peering into the futures of the Grimm's allies, she had seen death come to both the wolf and the prince, in less than a year. And then there was Hank, Nick's partner who guarded his back every day. Liliana had already foreseen the nice detective's ugly death. Before the reapers came, the Grimm's allies would all be gone, and he would be weakened by grief. Liliana had never met the prince, and wasn't certain yet if she should intervene on his behalf. She had already tried once to warn Hank away from danger, but he hadn't listened. She would consider other options for possibly saving Hank, but first, the wolf. His death was the closest. He had done her a kindness. He would not die, slaughtered like an animal in a pen while lowans cheered. Liliana would not allow it.

Liliana stood on the wolf's doorstep and hesitated in front of the lovely stained glass door. Beautiful music from a deep, rich-voiced stringed instrument tickled her ears. Her difficulty dealing with other people made a social call to someone's house a rare occurrence. In fact, Liliana couldn't remember the last time she had gone to someone else's house. She cocked her head to the side, thinking. Somewhere along the path of her life, she had settled so deeply into her cozy routine that she had become a recluse, talking to no one but her customers. She hadn't intended to hide from the world, but sometimes the world could be overwhelming. Hiding had been … easy.

The Grimm's death, and the death of the prince, the detective, and the wolf would not have any significant affect on her own life. Not that she had seen, in any case. She could go home. Close her eyes. Keep on hiding.

She held the thick, soft gray sweater to her nose and inhaled the pleasant scent of the wolf, cinnamon and musk with a trace of hoppy beer. She had promised the gentle wolf that she would return his sweater. Liliana kept her promises.

She knocked on the door.

The lovely music stopped. The wolf played the cello. The music had been his. Another good reason for her to be there, she told herself. Such music shouldn't vanish from the world. She focused on the texture of the hand knitted sweater in her hands, looking down at the intricate patterns of the weave, and tried not to let her nervousness drive her away from the wolf who needed her, even if he didn't know he did.

The wolf, Monroe, opened the door.

"Oh, um, hi?" he said, like it was a question.

Liliana had never heard "Hi" stated as a question. What was the proper social response? She had no idea. She kept all but her two human eyes firmly closed, even though looking into him might have made this less awkward by giving her clues to the meaning behind his words. Her other eyes disturbed the gentle wolf. She thrust the sweater into the startled blutbad's hands. "I told you I would give it back."

"Oh, awesome. Thank you!" Monroe said with obviously genuine feeling. "I never thought I'd see this again."

"I keep my promises," Liliana stated in her usual flat inflection.

"Oh, jeez, no, I didn't mean it that way. I didn't mean any offense or anything." The wolf acted flustered and uncomfortable. She had said something to make him feel bad, but she wasn't sure what.

Liliana felt frustrated. She wasn't any good at this social thing. She should just go home. But she remembered the image she had seen of the wolf dying, a sword thrust through his chest, and the raw grief on Nick's face when he was seconds too late to save his friend.

The wolf stood in the doorway uncertainly. "Um, well, thank you again. For bringing the sweater back. My mom made it for me. It really means a lot to me."

"You're welcome," Liliana said. That was an easy rule. If someone said thank you, she was supposed to say "you're welcome." But she thought maybe she was supposed to add something, to keep the conversation going. "You gave it to me because I was cold," Liliana said. It was the only thing she could think of. It was a great kindness, to give away something precious to him because someone else had greater need.

"Yeah, yeah, I did." Monroe said, and stopped uncertainly again.

Liliana fiddled with the flowy ends of her sleeves, running them through her fingers and watching the movement of the fabric. She wanted to go into the wolf's house, but she hadn't been invited. She knew the rule, that visitors waited until they were invited in. But the wolf seemed to have forgotten it. That was okay. She understood. She forgot that rule, too, sometimes.

"Was there something else?" Monroe asked.

That was close enough. Liliana nodded. "Yes." She walked past the wolf into his house.

He stepped aside to let her in, and closed the door behind her.

She was supposed to say something complimentary. "I like your music. It makes me sleepy."

"Um, thanks, I guess."

Liliana walked into his living room. "I don't like beer much, but I like tea," she said, and sat down on his couch. She had seen that when Nick came to visit, the wolf always offered him beer.

"Well, just make yourself at home, then," Monroe said, his lips twisted funny, and his voice implying that the words didn't quite mean what they said.

Liliana ignored the possible double meaning and took the words at face value. "Thank you. I like your house." She closed her eyes and listened to the tick, tick, tick of his many old-fashioned clocks, while he went into the kitchen and made her tea. The ticking clocks calmed her nerves, until she almost felt relaxed. Monroe's home was a good place, filled with peace and music, and the scent of good cooking.

When the wolf came back and handed her a cup of tea, she said, "I like your clocks a lot." The tea smelled of cinnamon and orange. Constant Comment. One of her favorites.

"Really? You're actually interested in clocks?" He said it like he wasn't sure she was telling the truth.

Liliana nodded. She looked up from the fabric of her skirt to study the many clocks in Monroe's living space. "I like the sounds they make. And they always know the time. I don't always know when I am."

Monroe half smiled. "I think I almost understood that."

"You must take the nail out of the crocodile's hand," Liliana said. It was the one turning point in the wolf's future that she had seen, the one thing that would make Dmitri, the skalenzahne who had been driven mad by consuming human flesh, hesitate to kill Monroe for a few crucial seconds. Monroe's kind heart would urge him to help the injured wesen, but in the frightening situation, he wouldn't do it, at least not without an extra nudge. Liliana had come to give him that nudge.

"Now, you've completely lost me."

"You don't have to understand," Liliana told him. "Just remember." She was afraid he wouldn't remember her advice at the crucial moment. She needed him to remember. She reached across to the big armchair he had settled in with his own cup of tea, and touched the back of his hand.

"You gave me your sweater because I was cold. I don't want you to die. Remember to take the nail from the crocodile's hand, okay?" For a moment, she looked at the wolf, met his eyes with her two human ones only. She didn't want him to be weirded out by her other six eyes, so she kept them closed.

"Ookay, then. Sure. Whatever you say."

Liliana nodded, and smiled at him. He would remember. She would take care of the rest. The wolf would survive his day as a lowen gladiator.

She sipped her tea contentedly, enjoying the warm peace of the gentle wolf's home. This social visiting thing wasn't so hard, really. She could do this.

Monroe sipped his tea, too.

They sat in silence until half her tea was gone. It didn't occur to Liliana that there was anything odd about that, but the wolf seemed increasingly uncomfortable.

"So, was there something else you wanted to tell me?"

Liliana considered. The friendship building thing usually involved some sort of sharing of personal information. She could find out pretty much anything she wanted to know about the wolf, simply by opening her eyes and looking, but he knew almost nothing about her. "My father was a lowen," she said. "He told me about competing in the lowen games in his youth, six hundred years ago. But, he was a lion tamer in the circus when I was little."

"Oh? I guess I assumed your father was, I don't know, a male spider."

"There are no male spinnesehen. We are all female. Our mates are always of one of the more fierce varieties of wesen. One of my sisters is mated to a mauvais dentes. My grandfather was a blutbad, like you, only he ate meat and liked to run in the forest a lot, and you don't."

"I used to do that, too," the wolf said a little defensively. He thought a moment and his eyes widened suddenly, as if he was alarmed. "You're not looking for a mate, are you?"

Liliana was startled by the unexpected question that seemed unrelated to the previous conversation. "I have three years before I am old enough to choose a lifemate."

The wolf seemed to relax a little. "Ah, okay."

"But I would like to choose one before the paarungzeit. Once that happens, hormones choose, and I would rather make a choice for myself."

Monroe swallowed, and set his tea cup down a bit roughly, endangering the delicate china. Liliana remembered that he translated German for Nick. Paarungzeit roughly translated to "mating time," so he should have a fairly good idea of what she meant.

It was a thing of the spinnesehen, that once every hundred years, they were biologically compelled to find a mate and produce a child. Liliana hadn't actually thought about it that much, but her first paarungzeit would be in three years. Her mother hadn't had the chance to teach her much about it. She found the idea disturbing, now that she thought about it.

She had no one she wished to mate with. If she didn't choose someone before her body changed, she would mate with any strong, fierce male in the vicinity.

The thought disturbed her deeply. She didn't want to mate and bear a child with some random male. She wanted to choose the father of her daughter, as her mother had.

She stood up suddenly, no longer comfortable in the wolf's home. She had given him the necessary message. She set her teacup down.

"I'm going home now," she said.

The wolf followed her to the door. "Okay, then. Well, thanks for stopping by, unexpectedly, in the middle of my cello practice, without calling, for no apparent reason."

"You're welcome," Liliana said. She paused at the door, thinking about what he said. "Would you prefer that I call first next time?"

"That would be a nice change." The wolf's voice seemed to almost always have that hint of mixed meanings. Again, she chose to accept his words at face value. Most of the time, that was a safe bet. And without looking into the wolf's mind, she had no idea what else he might mean.

Liliana nodded. "Okay." She left.

The wolf, shook his head, muttering something about, "Grimms, spiders, and what's next, lebensauger?" as he closed the door behind her.

Well, that had gone very well, Liliana thought, pleased with herself for overcoming her fear of social situations. She opened her fourth eyes and looked ahead. It hadn't quite been enough, though. The wolf would still die in the games. She had only bought him a few extra seconds of life. Not quite enough.

And if the wolf died, the Grimm would die. That was certain. Nick needed his wolf.

Liliana had more work to do.


	3. Grimm Training

Liliana sat in the branch of a tree in a part of the forest that was far from human habitation. It was beautiful there, and quiet. She listened to the wind in the leaves, the birds singing, the occasional drip of water from the early morning light rain. The air smelled of leaf mould and fresh rain, but the clouds had gone away, resulting in the wonder of a rare sunny day in the Portland area.

She took deep breaths, and reveled in the beauty, peace, and clean air. She really spent far too much of her time in her house. She had no idea why she hadn't come out here before. She promised herself that she would come again. Many times.

After maybe an hour of sitting silently in the tree, listening to the wind and the birds, she heard the sound of voices. Two familiar men's voices came slowly toward her. Monroe and Nick strolled into the clearing near her, as she had known they would.

"This looks like a good place to practice your shooting," Monroe said. "No one around for miles." He hung a pumpkin from a branch of the tree that Liliana sat in, and drew a grinning face on it with a sharpie.

Nick practiced shooting the pumpkin with a crossbow from various distances and angles, standing feet wide apart, one hand steadying the other. It was a firing position that police were taught; very steady, very stable, and very unlikely to be attainable in the middle of an actual fight. Nick's marksmanship was excellent, even with the pumpkin swinging violently to make it a more difficult target.

He seemed fairly pleased with his ability. Liliana shook her head in frustration. That would not do.

Nick practiced hitting trees with various weapons, and did some friendly wrestling with Monroe. Nick's strength and quickness were impressive, but his form was awful. Liliana's father would never have tolerated such sloppy footwork. He was off balance more than he was on.

The wolf was worse. Monroe depended entirely on his superior blutbad strength and the extra leverage his long arms gave him. He fought like a bar room brawler, no finesse, and no defense, all offense.

Liliana's father had taught her face-to-face, toe-to-toe fighting with various weapons and without, the brutal no-nonsense style of the gladiator. Her mother had taught her the fighting style of the spinnesehen. Set traps, wait patiently, entangle the enemy, strike swiftly from hiding and retreat to strike again. Her second mother taught her the fighting style of the balam, jaguar wessen; stalk silently, ambush from above, shred the enemy with lightning quick merciless strikes. Lilliana used all three styles, depending on the situation.

Any one of the three wessen who had raised Liliana would destroy this Grimm without breaking a sweat. All too soon, he would face two reapers at once, both properly trained fighters. Nick didn't stand a chance.

When she felt like she'd seen enough, and the two men were starting to look a little winded from their inadequate practice, she dropped on the wolf's shoulders from above. He fell on his face on the soft moss, with his breath whooshing out.

Nick reacted instantly, bringing up the loaded crossbow he'd been practicing with.

Liliana blocked his arm with hers, set her foot behind his ankle, and shoved.

The Grimm landed on his butt in the moss and leaves next to the wolf. Her blade was at his throat before he could even begin to fight.

His beautiful blue eyes widened nearly as much as they had in her vision of his death. He recognized her. "Lily! Where the hell did you come from?"

Liliana felt an odd sort of thrill in her belly that the Grimm showed only surprise, no sign of real fear, even though her blade was at his throat. Was it a good thing or a bad thing that the Grimm no longer feared her in the least? She really wasn't sure. But it wouldn't help him survive. He needed a little fear.

He tried to get up, but she pushed against the blade at his throat and added a knee to his belly to shove him down on his back, and cause him discomfort. "Shoot the pumpkin now."

He blinked at her in confusion for a moment, then his eyes went to the swinging pumpkin target.

She nodded.

Nick pointed the small crossbow awkwardly, at an uncomfortable angle, and took the shot. He missed.

"This isn't exactly an ideal firing position," Nick said.

"When enemies come for you, any position you can shoot them from is ideal," Liliana told him. "If you could have hit the siegbarste from this position, maybe Hank would not have been in danger. Maybe Monroe would not have had to shoot the ogre for you."

Monroe spoke up from behind her as he brushed leaves from his plaid shirt. "Hey, that's uncalled for."

Nick shook his head. "She's right. I fired three shots at Stark. I might have at least wounded him badly enough to slow him down, but all three shots missed."

Liliana nodded approval and flicked her wrist to sheath her arm blade back in the natural pocket in her forearm. "Practice shooting from your back, while running, while falling, while off balance, while surprised. Combat is not a shooting gallery. Your enemies will not wait for you to attain a textbook stance."

She extended her hand to him. Nick took it, and she helped him to his feet.

"Why are you here, Lily?"

"I will train you."

Monroe said, "Hey! I'm training Nick."

She looked up at Monroe. The tall wolf glared down at her small, slender form. It was probably intended to be intimidating. The wolf felt she was impinging on his territory. That she understood. Her father was a lowen.

She would have to prove her right to teach both the Grimm and the wolf.

In a single motion, she stepped forward diagonally past the wolf's position, placed her hip behind his thigh, and pushed with her arm across his chest, the main force on the opposite shoulder. He flipped backward over her hip and landed on his back, in the moss and leaves again. Tall men were much easier to throw than short because of the higher center of balance.

Monroe growled and his face shifted to fangs and fur. He leapt to his feet.

She flicked her arm blades out, over a foot of curved slender bone with an outer edge as sharp as a razor that angled outward from her wrists in a position useful both for defense and offense.

The tall wolf swallowed. He had faced her blades before, and lost.

He put his hands up, shifted back to human smooth skin. "Maybe we could just talk about this."

"No talking. Defend yourself." Liliana slashed at him, deliberately missing.

Monroe stepped backward arms up defensively. "Hey, cut it out. I thought we were friends."

She slashed at him again. "That is why you must learn to fight."

"Lily, what the hell are you doing?" Nick said as she slashed at Monroe.

"Stop me, Grimm. I could kill your friend."

Nick grabbed her shoulder.

Liliana twirled, freeing herself from his half-hearted grip, and punched him in the face, hard enough to rock him back on his heels. He would not fight until she made him take her seriously.

Monroe tried to grab her while she faced Nick.

She sheathed one arm blade so she wouldn't accidentally stab the wolf, stepped back between his legs, hooked his ankle, and elbowed him hard in the belly, just below the ribs as she threw her weight back. When people tried to grab you, they expected you to try evasion, not to go toward them.

The wolf's breath whooshed out and he fell backward, but one of his long strong arms hooked her belly as he fell, pulling her over with him.

She flipped her legs up and over her head as she went backwards, landing her full body weight hard on the wolf's chest as his back hit the ground. He gasped for breath and his grip loosened.

She somersaulted backward onto her feet. While the wolf coughed and tried to remember how to breathe, she leapt at the Grimm, left blade out front as if she intended to decapitate him. She realized that the angle and shape of her natural blades were not all that different from a reaper's scythe. Good. That was very good.

She swung her arm backhanded at Nick. On her blades, the sharp edge was outward. If she hit him, it would be with the blunt inner edge, but reaper's blades were sharp on the inner edge. The strike was a good mimic of a reaper's strike, although her arm wasn't as long as a scythe, of course.

He ducked. His reaction had been very fast. If she had been a reaper, Nick would still have his head.

Very good, she thought, but said nothing. It wasn't enough. He didn't follow up the defense with an attack. He still held back. She spun, popped out her other blade, and struck him with the blunt edge in the back, about shoulder blade level.

Nick grunted in pain. "Damnit, Lily. This isn't funny."

"I am not laughing, Grimm. Fight, or you will bleed."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I am not hurt. You are." She considered for a moment, head tilted sideways. The Grimm refused to fight her. He didn't fear her, nor would he harm her, even to save himself pain, as long as he believed she intended him no real harm. She swung a few backhanded blows at him while she wracked her brain for a way to motivate the compassionate Grimm. He dodged her attacks, but didn't follow with any of his own. This would not do.

The way he practiced with Monroe was more like the rough play of boys. Nick needed to bring his skills to a higher level in order to survive. But with her, he refused to strike. He would only defend.

It didn't take her long to decide what she had to do. She had to threaten someone Nick cared about. He had to see blood, and not his own. Nick defended those he cared about far more fiercely than he defended himself.

Liliana leapt straight up, caught a branch, swung, with a half-hearted kick to the Grimm's face to keep him at a distance, and flipped up onto the branch. She jumped over Nick, somersaulted in the air and landed next to Monroe.

The wolf had just gotten his breath back, and was climbing to his feet, dusting leaves off his clothes again. Liliana cut his forearm, very shallowly, drawing blood, but not doing any serious damage.

"Hey! Oww!"

"Fight me! Or, the next cut will be deeper. And the cut after that, and the cut after that."

She swung her blade at Monroe again.

He leapt backward, further than a human would have been able to, and growled. "I don't think so, bitch."

She grinned. Monroe would fight her now. He wasn't about to let her cut him again without a fight.

And neither would Nick.

Liliana had seen Monroe in a lowen arena, with a shield in his hand, in the future. The wolf hadn't known how to use the shield properly. So she brought two shields with her when she came. They had been her father's.

She drove Monroe back with fast slashes toward the tree where the shields were stashed.

Monroe shifted and growled at her through long fangs. He retreated steadily from her attacks, but his blood red eyes looked for an opening to strike back.

Liliana smiled and opened her second eyes so she could see in all directions. Now, things were getting interesting.

Nick leapt at her back, intending to tackle her.

Liliana jumped upward, back flipped, landed behind Nick, and shoved him forward so he ran right into Monroe.

Monroe caught him so he didn't fall. He shoved Nick hard to one side as Liliana swung a blade at the Grimm's unprotected back.

Liliana nodded approval. Now, they were taking her seriously.

The back of Monroe's heel bumped against one of the shields Liliana had left leaning against a tree.

She backed off for a moment to give the Grimm and the wolf a chance to pick up the shields.

Both men panted with exertion. They had been tired before she began.

"Why are you doing this, Lilly?" Nick asked while he strapped the shield to his arm.

"You both must learn to fight, properly, or you will both die." The words came out flat, as her words always did, but she felt her throat close a little on the last word as the images of their deaths flashed in her mind again. Once seen, she could never unsee. Even if she changed their paths, even if they survived, their deaths would still haunt her nightmares.

She swallowed the swelling lump in her throat. The visions she had seen would not be truth. She would not let them be.

Nick had the shield on his arm, but he approached her slowly, not like he intended to attack. She watched his feet with her watery human eyes, but her second eyes saw everything. A hand came up and pushed her thick black hair gently from her face. She wasn't sure why, but she let him do it. "What did you see, Lily?" Nick asked her gently.

She met his gaze with hers for just a moment. Her human eyes were hot and swimming with tears she refused to shed. She would not weep for them. These two men that she valued were not dead. And she would not let them be.

Nick met her eyes for the brief moment that she could stand to look directly at him. When she dropped her gaze back to his toes in the moss, he nodded. "Okay, Lily. What do we need to know?"

Liliana's shoulders loosened tension she hadn't even realized was there. Nick would listen. He would learn. He would live.

"Hold your shields high like this." She mimicked the proper position. "If I aim a blow low, drop your elbow only, keep your fist up. And don't just defend. Each defense of a blow should flow into an attack of your own."

"Attack with what?" Monroe asked. "The weapons are over there." He pointed a fair distance away, where they had been practicing before she pounced on them.

"Fight with what you have. A shield can be a weapon for offense as well as defense. You also have fists, claws, feet, sticks, trees. Everything is a weapon. And find a way to move the fight to where more effective weapons wait."

She fought them hard, both at once, so they learned to fight as a team, protecting each other's backs.

She struck, jumped back, circled, stuck again. Jumped into the trees, leapt down, struck again. She let them guide her toward Nick's Grimm weapons, and practically cheered when Monroe picked up a mace and swung it full force at her head when she darted in for an attack.

Both men dripped with sweat, and panted hard.

She stepped back to let them breathe for a moment. She needed a moment to catch her own breath as well. But only a moment.

"Monroe, fight with me now."

"What?"

Nick wiped sweat off his forehead. "It's getting late, Lily. I think we've done enough for one day."

"No, not enough. Now, you are tired. Now, you practice for real. Monroe and I will both try to kill you. Don't let us. Take us down. Use the crossbow."

The wolf looked at her like she had lost her mind.

Nick only hesitated a moment. He saw Lily's determined face, shrugged, nodded to Monroe, loaded his crossbow and raised his shield.

She and Monroe attacked at once. The wolf fought like he meant it, shoving Nick back off his feet with inhuman strength. Liliana was pleased.

The Grimm defended with surprising agility, accuracy and speed, even winded. The fight went on for a while until Nick used one of the wolf's long arms as leverage to slam Monroe into a tree.

Lilliana took the Grimm's feet out from under him with a foot sweep.

Even as Nick fell, he twisted and fired the crossbow at her.

The crossbow bolt grazed Lily's cheek and embedded itself in the tree behind her. She laughed. "Now, it is enough."

Nick grinned at her, white teeth and eyes fierce and triumphant.

Stunning. In all her life, she had never seen anything more beautiful than this Grimm. He took her breath away. For a moment, she just stood there, staring at him.

His smile faltered and his brows drew together in question.

Liliana shook her head to clear it. She extended a hand to help him up. "Tomorrow. We will do it again."

Monroe groaned.

Nick chuckled. "It's going to take us a week to recover from one day of this."

Liliana nodded. "That is why we must do it again tomorrow. Tomorrow you will hurt. You will be sore and tired."

Nick looked at her quizzically. "That's a good thing?"

She considered how to explain it to him. "When your second mother was dying, three times, her life was threatened. You protected her once, Monroe the second time, but she defended herself the third time. She could not fight the disease, but no enemy could steal life from Marie Kessler, not even when she was already near death."

Nick nodded to acknowledge that what Liliana said was truth, but didn't say anything. Complex emotions played on his face. She opened her third eyes to see into his feelings and thoughts. Grief, anger, pride. He wondered what his aunt's courage and toughness had to do with him.

"Marie Kessler's nephew must become as strong as she was. A Grimm must be able to fight fiercely, even when sore and tired."

Nick's jaws tightened and his lips pressed together. He wondered what his aunt would think of him if she were still alive. He nodded tightly. "Tomorrow."

Monroe groaned again. "Some days, I wish I'd never met you, Nick."

Liliana looked at the wolf in shock. She looked with her third eyes, and saw that he didn't mean what he said. He was proud of Nick's trust in him. He actually looked forward to getting to cut loose again without violating his principles.

Nick grinned at his friend. He already knew that Monroe's grumbling was meaningless.

Liliana shook her head, baffled. She would never understand why people said one thing and meant something completely different.

Liliana left them in the woods and went home. She was a little sore and tired, herself. She had not had such an intense workout in some time. She smiled a little. It was yet another aspect of her life that the Grimm had reminded her to miss.

As she swung from tree to tree on the silk lines she had left when she entered the forest. She opened her fourth eyes and looked ahead to the Grim's death at the hands of the two reapers. The vision was still there, but it flickered. Other possible outcomes of that fight flickered in and out of possibility.

Nick's death was still highly probable, but no longer certain. His increase in fighting skill might be enough to save his life.

Liliana smiled in triumph.

She looked ahead to Monroe's death, which was very close in time. It was still there. He fought with more skill, but was still defeated. Monroe would still die.

Extra training would not be enough.

She had to do more.


	4. The Spider, the Prince and the Lion

Lilianna practiced with Monroe and Nick every day that they could spare the time. Nick's schedule was more busy than Monroe's, between police work and his lady love. When only Monroe was available, Liliana asked him to come and see her clocks. They were all in good working order, but a cleaning by an expert wouldn't hurt. He was the first person other than herself to come into the home part of her house, not just the business part.

She paid him his normal rate, and he was delighted to get his hands on her time pieces. Her clocks were not as nice as his for the most part, but she had a lot of them, and some were rare or old. She searched for them at flea markets and second hand stores, and lately, on ebay and craig's list. She liked old clocks almost as much as Monroe did.

She also liked the wolf. It seemed like a good way to spend time with him, to build trust with a shared passion, when she wasn't actively trying to slice him open.

She still wasn't very good at talking to him, but when it came to clocks, he was delighted to do the vast majority of the talking himself. She listened and nodded occasionally, as he told her all about each one of her clocks, and that was enough for him.

She had concocted a plan to save the wolf. She needed him to trust her, and there was very little time.

As the wolf left her home, she reminded him to take the nail from the crocodile's hand.

He smiled and said, "Sure, whatever you say, Lilly."

He called her Lilly, like Nick did. She smiled. She liked that her friends called her by a different name than her customers.

Her friends.

Liliana had friends.

She smiled to herself as the gentle wolf drove away. She hadn't had friends since she left the circus. The life had been chaotic, but the camaraderie of circus folk was deep. She hadn't realized that she missed it, just as she hadn't realized how much she missed flying on the trapeze.

Liliana considered how her life had changed since the day a Grimm walked into her shop and accused her of murder. It was almost as if she had been asleep for years. Her new friends woke her up. Her friends reminded her to live, not just exist.

Now, she had to make sure that her friends survived the night.

Liliana didn't own a car. Most of the time, it wasn't a problem.

Today, it might be.

She stepped out her door thirty seconds before an empty cab turned the corner in front of her place.

Liliana waved the cab down and got in.

"Wow," the cabbie said. "That was amazing luck. I just dropped someone off around the corner. I hardly ever end up in this neighborhood."

"It wasn't luck," Liliana said. "I saw you coming."

She told the cabbie to take her to the probation office.

She arrived an hour before the end of the lowan king's shift. Leo Taymor was a distant relative of her father's. She had paid his father and predecessor her respects when she moved to Portland, out of courtesy. When the torch of leadership passed to Leo, she paid him the courtesies as well although she wasn't sure he deserved it. In any case, he knew her. So, she should be able to convince him to give her a ride to the lowan games.

Leo was nothing like her father, Simon. Simon had been wise and honorable. He had also been fierce and stern, a solitary hunter where most lowans clung to the security of a pride. Simon had preferred the company of actual lions to the company of his own people, but he had still paid proper respects to the lowens whose territories he passed through, and taught her to do the same. She remembered adoring her father, while simultaneously being a little frightened of him.

Leo Taymore, the lion king of Portland, didn't frighten her, nor did she feel he was worthy of the respect a lowan king should have commanded. He was a petty little man with delusions of grandeur who abused what little power he had. But her father had taught her the formal courtesies that lowan society expected, and she still followed them. She was spinnesehen, but she was still a lowan's daughter.

She found a comfortable, out-of-the-way spot in the concrete structure of the parking garage and waited. She had seen that Leo would come out soon, and that he would go directly from here to the lowan games with just a brief stop at his home. She intended to ask him for a ride.

It raised her eyebrows to see someone coming she hadn't expected. The prince.

She didn't see him in the future with her fourth eyes. She saw him right then with her human eyes. He parked his car practically under her perch in the roof structure. She looked forward in time to see why the prince had come.

Ah. Hmm. Well, that changed her plan a bit. The lowan king would not be in the mood to grant her favors after the prince spoke to him.

The prince came to warn the lowen king not to use unwilling conscripts in his games. The warning would be too late to save Monroe, but it was still good that the prince would put a stop to this mockery of the honor games her father fought in his youth.

She considered introducing herself to the prince. She had foreseen his death, but hadn't yet decided if she would intervene to change his fate.

He apparently knew about the games, but thought only addicts and the violent gang boys of the streets were being forced into them, the elements of Portland society that the police captain would not be unhappy to see disappear. Now that the prince knew the lowen king had overstepped his bounds and taken the innocent, he was doing what he had to in order to stop it.

That showed a sense of justice, perhaps even honor. Liliana decided that her father would probably have respected this prince.

On an odd impulse, she dropped from her perch and walked to the prince's car.

The prince was alone.

She approached the passenger side of his car, and knocked on the window, startling him. She showed both her empty hands to the man who watched her warily with one hand on the gun under his jacket.

He kept his hand on the gun as he pushed the button to roll the window down.

"What do you want?"

"I want to speak to you, and to offer proper courtesy. I was not aware until recently that a prince resided in Portland. I know you have come here to speak to the lowan king, but Leo will not come out for fifteen more minutes, so we have a little time. I have no wish to interfere in your business here. In fact, I support and respect what you are doing." It was a lot of words. More than Lilliana had spoken in a row in quite a while, but she knew she had only one chance. If the prince decided she was a threat, he would almost certainly try to kill her, and that would limit her future options. "May I sit with you for a brief time and talk?"

The prince nodded, and pushed the button on his door handle that unlocked the passenger door. His other hand stayed on the butt of his gun.

Liliana opened the door, sat down beside the prince, and closed the car door. "Thank you, your highness," she said. She realized that she knew his rank and job, but didn't know his name, or much of anything else about him, except his connection to her favorite Grimm. She fiddled with the ends of her skirt, running the fabric between her fingers, and watching the movement.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"I also came to speak to Leo, but when you finish speaking to him, he will not wish to speak to me, so I will have to change my plans."

"I'm sorry?" he said, as if it were a question.

Maybe he was asking her if he should be sorry for forcing her to alter her plans?

She shook her head. "No. You should not be sorry. Leo is conscripting innocents. He has no right. Your mission here is honorable."

The tall prince raised dark brows at her. "Honor is not a word I hear very often."

"I was raised to respect men of honor, even if they were enemies."

"Are we enemies?" he asked, hand tightening on the weapon under his jacket.

Liliana looked at him directly with her human eyes for a fraction of a second, then back down at her hands. "I have not decided yet."

His lips twitched a little at the corner in something that almost looked like a smile. "I'm not used to that much honesty."

Liliana smiled a little, too. "I always speak the truth. If we become enemies, I will tell you." She shrugged. "Or I will simply kill you, but I will never tell you I am an ally if I am not." Liliana watched the digital clock on the prince's dashboard to keep track of time. She didn't want him to miss his appointment with Leo.

The prince smiled full out, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Fair enough." His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. "Why would it matter to me if you were my enemy or my ally?"

She considered the question. This prince asked very good questions. "If I decide you are an ally, then I will save your life. If I decide you are an enemy, then I will not."

"Is my life in danger?"

"Not yet. You have a few months yet to live. I will have to decide before then."

He smiled again, clearly a little amused by the conversation. "Well, I hope you decide in my favor then." He wasn't taking her very seriously, but he wasn't blowing her off completely either. She seemed to intrigue him.

It was her turn to ask a question. "You sent the reaper away who came to kill the Grimm. Why?"

"How do you know that?" His amusement vanished, and anger touched his voice.

Lilliana shrugged. "I am spinnesehen. I know it the same way I know that you will die in less than half a year. I know it the same way I know that you are both a prince and a police captain. I know it the same way that I know what you intend to say to Leo when you see him."

"Spinnesehen. A spider who sees. I have heard of your kind, but never met one." If he knew about her people, then he knew that she really might have foreseen his death. His body language shifted. He now took her far more seriously.

"Now you have met a spinnesehen. I am Lilliana." She nodded a sketchy bow in his direction.

He nodded back to her. "I am honored." Old world manners. "A spinnesehen could be a very powerful ally to have."

"Or a powerful enemy, highness. I still have not decided." Lilliana cocked her head to one side. "Why did you send the reaper away who came to kill the Grimm?"

"My reasons are my own."

Lilliana looked at him and opened her third eyes, looking deeply into him. On the surface was control, tight, careful, unrelenting. Under that was a powerful desire for justice, balance, order. There was a coldness, a ruthless logic, but what lay beneath that was far from cold. His center was filled with the fire of bitterness and rage. This prince had been a victim. He had been weak and he had been hurt, deeply. Humiliation. Someone had treated him like dirt beneath their shoes. He had an iron determination to never be weak again, to never be anyone's victim. He craved power and respect like other men craved love and comfort.

An angry beast lived in his soul, an ugly distortion of the handsome face the world saw, but he kept the beast under tight control, like everything else.

Her view into his heart told her a great deal about who this man was, but not why he watched over her Grimm. His mind was like a mirror, reflecting distorted images back at her. Shielded. Even his thoughts were carefully controlled.

He pulled the gun from under his jacket and pointed it at her forehead, right between her fourth set of eyes.

"Stay out of my head."

Lilliana nodded respect, and closed all but her human eyes. "As you wish." She waited for him to lower the gun, but he hesitated, still pointing it at her, as if she suddenly seemed like a far more dangerous threat, now that she had shown him her inhuman face. He seemed to be considering whether or not to kill her right there and then.

Loss of control and powerlessness were the things this prince feared most. She had the power to see into his thoughts, to know his secrets, and he was powerless to stop her. She had frightened him. And that made him very dangerous. "I am not the one who threatens your life, dark prince. I seek a reason to save it," she reminded him.

He blinked, and lowered the weapon. "My apologies."

"Accepted." Lilliana looked at the clock and sighed. "Leo will exit his office in four minutes. You will want to be standing there before he comes." She pointed to a concrete roof support pillar that would hide the prince's presence from the lowan king until he was close.

She opened the passenger door of the car and got out. The prince got out on his side as well. "Have you made your decision?" he asked curiously, gun still in hand.

"No," she answered. The prince was complex. There was coldness, darkness, anger, violence, ruthlessness and pain in him, but there was also a strong personal code of honor and a powerful desire for justice and order. He was both a very good man and a very bad man. She had never met anyone so layered and balanced between darkness and light. He was not pure and bright like her favorite Grimm, but he had his own kind of compelling dark beauty. "May I ask your name, dark prince?"

His eyebrows shot up again in surprise. He probably wondered how she could know secret things about him, but not know the most basic, his name. "Sean Renard."

She bowed slightly, and walked beside the very tall prince to the concealing pillar, with no more fear of his weapon. He would not shoot her. She was certain of it now.

The top of her head barely reached his chest. She hadn't realized until she stood beside him that he was even taller than Monroe. She looked up at him directly for a moment, but only with her human eyes, so as not to frighten him again. "Did you send for more reapers to come to Portland to kill the Grimm, Nick Burkhardt?" she asked, with very little hope that he would give her a straight answer.

His jaw tightened. "No. I didn't."

Her own eyebrows went up. That was certainly a straight answer. "May I look to see if you speak the truth?" She raised her hands to placate him. "Nothing more?"

He nodded permission.

She opened her third eyes, the ones just under her human eyes, and looked at him.

He repeated his answer. "I absolutely did not order reapers to come to Portland to kill Nick."

It was truth, very vehement truth.

And they were out of time.

"I will speak with you again another time, Sean Renard." She bowed.

"Wait." He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed hard to hold her there. "Are reapers coming to kill Nick?"

She looked at his large hand, squeezing into her slender shoulder hard enough to bruise. She could cut that hand off at the wrist, but that seemed like a bit of an overreaction.

The prince let go, and held his hand up in apology.

"Not yet. But soon," she told him. "Death will come for Nick before it comes for you."

"Damn!" he cursed softly. She didn't need her other eyes to know that the prince hadn't even known that the reapers were coming, much less ordered it. And he wasn't happy about it.

Lilliana cocked her head to one side and opened her fourth eyes, to look into Nick's future. The moment of his death was still there, still with only a bit of flickering, uncertain, but unchanged.

The prince knowing ahead of time that the reapers were coming made no difference.

"You cannot stop them this time," she told him.

He started to ask her something else, but turned to look the other way as Leo's footsteps echoed in the concrete parking structure.

Liliana shook her head in disgust. The lowan king moved with the stealth of a hippopotamus. Her father would have been appalled. She had left a line dangling from the alcove in the concrete structure that she hid in earlier. She scrambled up the line and into her hole, not wanting Leo to see her with the prince.

The prince turned back around as if to say something to her, but she wasn't there anymore.

She watched as the prince tried to convince the lowen king to stop using innocent conscripts in his games. He refused, showed defiance, and the conversation turned violent.

Leo still didn't have the good sense to agree to keep his word and limit his contestants, nor to shut the games down. He was a fool. The lowen of Portland would be better off when this was over and they could choose a more worthy king.

This left Lilliana with a bit of a dilemma, though. She had no way to get to the games herself.

She closed all but her fourth eyes and followed Leo forward into his future. She saw where he went, to the remote rural location where the arena and the caged combatants waited. She considered her options.

Lilliana did not know how to drive. Even stealing a car would not get her there.

If she didn't get to the games, Monroe would die.

There was only one answer left. She had to ride with Nick. But if she did that, she risked altering the future in a way that would get Monroe killed.

Nick would get to the games only minutes before Monroe died, and only if Monroe did as she told him, and helped the injured crocodile wessen who was the lowen's current champion.

She closed her eyes, looked, and nodded.

Monroe's compassion made him want to help the injured gladiator, anyway. He would remember her advice that had seemed like nonsense before, and act. The wolf would survive until she and Nick got there.

After that, seconds would make the difference one way or the other.


	5. Spiders Don't Drive

Lilliana caught a cab to the police station, where Nick's car was parked.

That was a problem. She thought she could just stow away in the back of his car, but she couldn't get to it in the police station parking garage. There were too many electronic eyes for her to pass unseen.

Nick would come out soon, but he would immediately get in his car and drive away.

Not good.

Lilliana took the only option left to her. She walked in the front door of the police station. There were people everywhere, crowds of them. Liliana wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tight, fingers fiddling constantly with her loose flowy sleeves, eyes on her ballet shoes.

People bumped into her, crowded her, shouted and jostled. A policeman behind a desk asked her business there, after she waited for a few minutes for others who had arrived first to make their requests.

"I need to speak to Detective Nick Burkhardt. I have information related to the case he is working on." That should get her in, and it was true.

"Burkhardt, huh? Hang on."

The overweight man left her waiting for several minutes while he dealt with others. Lilliana was beginning to worry that Nick would leave before she got to him. If that happened, Monroe would die.

She went back to the large policeman behind the desk, shoved a man three times her size with a whole lot of tattoos aside, and said, "I need to see Nick now, Officer! A man's life depends on it."

"Okay, lady, keep your shirt on." He called over his shoulder to an Asian policeman not much taller than she was. "Hey, Wu! This lady says she needs to talk to Burkhardt right now. Life or death."

The Asian policeman looked familiar. She had seen flashes of his face in the images she watched of Nick's life. "You are Nick's friend," she said relieved, as he escorted her into the building. She looked at him with all her eyes. He was a good man, but he had a very unpleasant future. And on top of that, he would die, murdered the same night as the prince, by the same hands.

Lilliana flinched from the ugly vision. Why was it that every person she looked at lately was slated to die horribly and suddenly in less than a year? She was about ready to give up looking at people's futures if this was all she would see. She shook her head in frustration. At least, she could spare the man some serious discomfort. "Don't eat the last cookie," she told him. "It's far more trouble than it's worth. I promise."

"It always is," he agreed.

As they arrived, Nick picked his jacket up off the back of his chair, preparing to leave. She had barely made it in time.

"Burkhardt," Officer Wu shouted across another crowded room. "This lady says she has some information for you."

Everyone in the room stared at her at once. Lilliana wanted desperately to crawl under a desk, or better, into the roof rafters behind the suspended ceiling. She hugged herself tight, stared at her own toes, fiddled with her sleeves, and tried to ignore all the staring eyes. She wondered if this was how her eyes made Monroe feel, like a bug under a microscope.

It was too much.

"Lilly, what's going on? What are you doing here?" Nick's voice spoke right beside her. She had shut down to the point where she hadn't seen him walk up to her.

She looked up and around, but it was still overwhelming. Too many people. She looked down again. Two familiar faces stood out in her scan of the room. Detective Hank and the dark prince. The rest were strangers. Dozens of strangers.

"Hey, if it isn't Anna Sees All," Hank said, with a laughing tease in his voice. "Seen anything interesting in your crystal ball lately?"

"Get me out of here, Nick," Lilliana whisered.

"Sure, Lilly. I've got you." He put a protective arm over her hunched shoulders. "I was just heading out anyway."

Lilliana huddled into his warmth and hid her face against his chest to shut out all the people.

"What's going on here?" the dark prince asked. No, not the prince. Here, he was the police captain. "Who is this?" he asked, as if he had never seen her before.

"Just a friend," Nick said. "She's a little lost, I think."

Officer Wu said, "Well, that's clearly life or death information. Glad I could drop everything I was doing to get her straight to you."

"Life or death," Lilliana mumbled into Nick's chest. Lilliana was incredibly frustrated with her own helplessness. Monroe might die because she couldn't handle crowds well and couldn't drive a car. She took a deep breath and said it louder. "Life or death. Seconds count. We have to go now." She pushed him a little, not sure if it was in the right direction, but at least it would get him moving.

Hank chuckled. "You heard your new girlfriend, Nick. What are you waiting for?"

"I'll swing by Lilly's place on the way out, and drop her off." Nick walked her through the building to the parking garage.

"Just take me to your car," Lilliana told him, relieved that they were moving in the right direction with a minimum of delay. "You were already going where I need to go. I will ride with you."

"I'm in the middle of an investigation. You can't come with me."

"I know. You want to find and stop the lowen games, save Dmitri the crocodile. Don't do anything different than you were going to do. You're on the right track, but you have to take me with you."

Nick hesitated as they got to his car. "It's too dangerous for you to come with me. This isn't training. It's real."

"I know it's dangerous. That's why I have to be here." Lilly looked into the future and saw Monroe's chances of survival flickering. Lilliana opened the back door on the passenger side and got in. "Get in the car now! Go as if I'm not here. I promise, I will stay out of your way."

"Lilly, …"

"Go now, Nick! Seconds count."

"What did you see, Lilly?" Nick leaned in the car to look at her.

"Something bad." Lilly closed all her eyes to shut out the blood and death that she seemed to see lately every time she opened them. She put her fists in front of her face to block it all out. "You have to trust me, Nick. You have to. There's no time. You have to go now."

Finally, he nodded, shut her door, and got into the driver's seat.

Precious seconds had ticked by, a change in Nick's path. Minutes. They had lost minutes.

Maybe it would be okay. Maybe it wouldn't matter. Lilliana didn't want to look, but she did anyway. She had to know. The images of Monroe's fate flickered, but none were good. She saw him die in three or four different ways now, but his death was almost certain. She shivered and huddled down in the seat. They wouldn't make it in time. And somehow, her actions in trying to prevent the gentle wolf's death had made matters even worse.

Nick might not have to worry about reapers. His death in the arena flickered in with the other outcomes. Nick and Monroe both were likely to die tonight, just because she didn't know how to drive.

Lilliana hugged herself, pulled her feet up on the seat, wrapped her skirt around her feet and rocked with her eyes tightly closed. She couldn't stand to watch any more bloody death.

There was nothing more she could do. She had only made it worse. She shut down and waited for Nick to find his way to the barn in the middle of nowhere filled with lions who wanted to eat him alive.


	6. To Save a Wolf

Lilliana became aware of the world again when Nick got out of the car. They were not in the right place. And it was too soon.

She looked for Nick with her fourth eyes, unwilling to budge from the safe space in the back seat until she made it to the lowan arena.

Nick was punching someone. He was angry and afraid. "Where is he? Where did you take him?"

Lilliana got out of the car. Seconds. Seconds mattered, and she had lost minutes with the fiasco in the police station. Monroe's death had become almost certain.

But she saw a chance to make up the time.

"I know where he is, Nick. I know where Monroe is."

Nick held a lowan with a bloody nose up from the ground by the shirt front next to Monroe's yellow VW beetle. Nick dropped the lowan in the dirt. "Why didn't you tell me that, Lilly?"

"If I say or do too much, things I try to change get worse. If we get there too soon, Monroe will die. If we get there too late, Monroe will die. If you get there without me, Monroe will die, and you will, too. If we get there together in the right moment and do the wrong thing, we will all die."

Nick swallowed. "Life or death. Seconds count."

Lilly nodded, glad that Nick understood.

"Can you tell me how to get there?" he asked her.

Lilliana closed her human eyes and opened her fourth eyes. She saw Monroe's death flicker and flicker with a thousand other outcomes. Everything became blurry, uncertain. Flux. In this moment, Monroe's life and future hung in flux. What she and Nick did right now would change Monroe's future, and their own. "Yes. I can tell you now."

Lilly got in the front seat of Nick's car, pulled a pencil and paper out of the glove box, and started drawing a map to the location she had seen.

Nick cuffed the lowan to Monroe's car, and pulled out his phone as he got back in the car with her. "Hank, I've got a lead on the location of the lowan games." He looked at Lilly.

She handed him the map.

Nick described the location as he pulled out. "Bring backup," he said as he sped down the road and set the phone down.

Nick tried to talk her into staying in the car when they arrived.

Lilliana ignored him, jumped out of the car, grabbed his hand and dragged him forward. They had made up a little time, but she didn't know if it was enough. Seconds counted.

As they entered the building, Nick pulled back.

He pushed her behind him, a finger on his lips to keep her silent, and his gun in his hand.

He led the way into the old barn, and took out the lowen guards with quick efficient blows before they realized anyone was there.

Lilliana nodded approval.

Nick understood stealth. Her father would have liked him.

When he had taken out the guards and stood looking at the empty cages uncertainly, Lilliana pushed past him, grabbed his hand and dragged him forward again.

"This way. Hurry!"

They found the shouting crowd of lowans with the cage in the center in the big open area of the old barn.

The crowd of shouting people froze Lilliana in place for a moment.

Nick bumped into her. "You okay?"

Lilliana shook her head. "Don't worry about me. Save Monroe."

Nick started forward into the crowd, gun still in his hand but held low and close to his leg so it wasn't obvious.

Lilliana couldn't follow him. She would be worse than useless to the Grimm. She would be a liability that might get him killed, someone to worry about besides Monroe, and himself.

She looked up. Rafters. Lovely thick wooden beams well above the crowd and shadowed.

It took a little athletics, a few lines of silk attached to the wall, and a bit of scrambling, but Lilliana made it up there. She ran along one of the beams to the center of the room, just above the cage.

A gaier crouched on the beam in the spot with the best vantage point. He hissed at her. "I was here first, little girl."

Lilliana popped both her arm blades out, opened all her eyes and showed him her fangs.

The gaier swallowed, and his beak disappeared into an unremarkable human face. "I'll find another spot." He hopped down, leaving the beam to her.

It gave her a perfect view of the inside of the cage. Monroe was on the ground on his back, alive, thank goodness, but with the crocodile's foot on his chest, and his sword hovering above his heart.

The timing was perfect. Nick had arrived at exactly the right moment to save Monroe.

Lilliana saw into Dmitri the skalenzahne's fogged mind. He didn't want to kill the wolf. The wolf had helped him. He hoped that just this once, the master would let him not kill.

Monroe had remembered her advice. He'd helped the crocodile.

The lowan king's hand was stuck through the bars of the cage, thumb level with the floor.

The room went silent. Nick's gun was against the lowen king's temple.

Lilliana attached a silk line to the beam and measured the right length to get her to the top of the cage just above Nick and Leo Taymor. She leapt, swung, and landed lightly, slippered feet making almost no sound, completely unnoticed by the two men having their tense conversation below her.

Nick threatened the lowan king, but Leo defied him, saying that even if he died, the other lions would rip Nick apart. It was true. That was one possible outcome that Lilliana had seen. And Monroe would die first.

Leo gave the signal to Dmitri to kill Monroe.

Dmitri hesitated. He didn't want to kill the wolf. Slowly, reluctantly, he raised his sword. He had no choice.

Nick volunteered to fight for Monroe's life.

"Wait!" Leo shouted to Dmitri.

Gratefully, the crocodile lowered his sword, waiting as ordered.

Lilliana watched with all her eyes. This was the best outcome. If Nick and Monroe fought together, they would both live. She had trained them specifically to win this fight. Nick had proven particularly good at using a shield as a weapon.

But the lion king had to let it happen.

Nick gave up his gun.

Leo laughed and bared fangs. He grabbed Nick by the hair. "Stupid Grimm." He had no intention of keeping his word. He wanted to rip Nick's throat out in front of his pride to make himself seem more impressive.

Lilliana was disgusted. This man called himself a lowan king. She shouted as loud as she could, "A lowen king's word is law!"

Leo looked up at her. Nick looked up at her. Everyone looked up at her.

Lilliana swallowed and fought the urge to hunch into a little ball and slink away.

"Who are you to speak here?" Leo demanded.

Lilliana tilted her chin up in pride, and found the courage to speak with hundreds of eyes on her. "I am a lowen's daughter. My father taught me that a lowen's honor was all. And the lowen king's word is law. If the lowen king says that a Grimm will fight in the games," Lilliana paused, then raised her voice in a shout again, "Then the Grimm will fight!"

The crowd around her erupted in fierce shouts. "Yeah! Make the Grimm fight! Yeah!"

Several lowans grabbed Nick roughly and forced him into the huge fighting cage with Monroe.

Dmitri stepped back. He gave Monroe a chance to stand up and grab a shield, without anyone ordering him to.

Lilliana looked forward with her fourth eyes even as she looked at the current fight with her human eyes and her second eyes. Relief flooded her. Monroe and Nick would both survive.

They would fight. Nick would defeat Dmitri, and the police would arrive before the lowan crowd could take out their anger on the wolf and the Grimm.

She saw an unwanted image flash by in the future. She and Monroe both sat in cages. Not in the lowan cages, in holding cells at the police station. Monroe would be brutally beaten by the angry lowans he shared a cell with.

Monroe made it through all of this only to die while Nick struggled to get through the explanation about how and why Monroe had been helping him.

That wouldn't do.

And Lilliana didn't like cages. There was no way she would meekly allow herself to be put in one.

Lilliana swung back up to the beam, added another silk line, extra thick and dropped back onto the cage just as the lowens opened the doors, intent on attacking Monroe and Nick.

The two men stood back to back in a good defensive position. Nick's face shone with battle rage, Monroe's with determination.

Lilliana smiled. Even if the police hadn't shown up, it would have taken a lot of lions to take down her two champions.

The police came in and the lowens scattered in panic.

"Monroe!" Lilliana shouted, hanging upside down from the top of the cage and extending her hand through the open door. "This way!"

Monroe ducked under the low cage door and took her hand. She helped him climb to the top of the cage, wrapped a couple of loops of silk around his waist, and grabbed his wrist in a trapeze catcher's hold. "Run!" she told him, still holding his wrist so he was forced to follow her as she ran lightly across the bars of the cage top.

The wolf's big feet had a harder time with the bars, but he managed to keep up with her until she leapt off the edge, her line in one hand, the wolf's wrist gripped tight in the other.

Monroe shouted in wordless terror as they swung out and up on the two lines.

Lilliana guided Monroe's big body toward the roof beam. "Grab on," she told him as he more or less smacked into it with his full body.

He got his long arms and legs around the beam and hung upside down from it.

Lilliana scrambled nimbly on top of the beam, and helped him up.

"This way," she told him. Below them, police rounded up lions with much shouting and bright spot lights. But no one looked up into the shadows.

Monroe looked a little ill. "I'm not real good with heights."

Lilliana grinned. "This is not very high." She held the wolf's hand to steady his balance. She walked him to the edge of the room where a ladder led up to an old hay loft above the room with the cages.

She peeked out of the hayloft door without bothering to open it first. Police were everywhere.

She put her finger to her lips to keep Monroe quiet and waited and watched. She saw a time when no one would be on this side of the building for about five minutes. That should be just enough time.

Just as a policeman turned the corner leaving the lot on the side of the building with no ground level access empty, she opened the door, attached a couple of lines and helped Monroe down to the parking lot. They could hear the noise and talking of police on the other sides, and the flashing lights.

"Now, what?" Monroe asked her, since she seemed to have a plan.

Lilliana tilted her head, considering. It was a really, really long walk back to town. Even Monroe's car was miles away.

"Nick will give us a ride home."

Liliana walked over to Nick's car, right where they had left it, doors unlocked because they had been in far too much of a hurry to take the time to lock them.

Monroe and Lilliana got in the back seat and waited. They didn't duck down or hide. The just sat, comfortably, as if they belonged there.

Monroe looked around nervously, waiting for the police to spot them. "This is it. This is your escape plan?"

Lilliana looked forward in time and grinned without saying anything. She buckled her seat belt.

Officer Wu, the Asian policeman who had escorted her through the police station, looked in at them and shined a flashlight in their faces.

Lilliana rolled down the window. "Hello, Officer Wu."

"What are you two doing in the back of Nick's car?"

"This is my friend that I was worried about. Nick helped me find him. Nick told me to wait in the car. I'm waiting in the car."

Monroe waved and smiled, but didn't add anything to that.

"Ooookay," Wu said.

Wu looked up, waved Nick over, and hooked a thumb to point at them over his shoulder. "Burkhardt, do you know that there are two people in the back of your car?"

Nick looked at them. His mouth twitched into a smirk. "Thanks, Wu. Has anyone told you that you have amazing powers of observation?"

"It has been said."

Nick slid into the driver's seat a moment later. "You guys okay?"

"Okay is not the word," Monroe said. "I am desperately in need of a hot bath, about a gallon of ben gay, and a cappuccino."

"We are well, Nick. As soon as you can, we would like you to drive us to Monroe's car. Monroe can drive me home."

Nick chuckled. "I'll let the captain and Hank know I've got to run a quick errand before I dive into the paperwork on this."

"The captain is not here," Lilliana told him.

Nick's thick brows bunched together. "Not here? I would have thought he'd be here for a bust like this."

Lilliana shrugged, but didn't say anything. She would not betray the prince's secrets to the Grimm any more than she would betray the Grimm's secrets to the prince. That would not be honorable. Her father taught her better than that.

She looked for the dark prince with her fourth eyes and saw Leo's coming demise. For once, she wasn't sorry that her fourth eyes showed her bloody death. Leo had not been worthy of his station, and he had very nearly killed both of her friends.

She nodded with dark satisfaction at the handsome face of the prince as he walked away from the still screaming lion.

Unlike her favorite Grimm and his wolf, the prince was not a good man. But, perhaps, like the Grimm, he was the kind of man her city needed.


End file.
